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I’ve spent the last week bursting into tears at random moments, culminating when I wept over Bailey eating my corned beef sandwich on Sunday. Today was one of the hardest days of my life. At 5am we left my in-laws’ house in South Jersey and drove to UPenn. At 7:15am, Chris was taken into surgery. I’ve been a weepy, awful mess since last night.

The surgery went well, even better than expected. He will be much better in the long run. But wow. And then he spent almost 10 hours in the recovery room, because his room wasn’t ready yet. Talk about ridiculous! But the nurse who was with him all day was great and Chris did an awesome job. But there are no words for the ball of emotion that I am.

I have amazing friends and in-laws who took care of me all day. I can’t thank my best friend Julie enough for driving own and spending most of the surgery sitting next to me, keeping me calm. In 2002 she moved to Ithaca to attend Cornell, then to Massachusetts when she went to MIT for grad school. Two weddings and a baby later, we are back in the same state as of two weeks ago. Someone was looking out for me in that regard. I’m not sure I would have made it through the morning without her there.

And also, a big thanks to the nurses who checked with me all day. I so don’t do hospitals. Needles make me faint and I get pale at the thought of an IV. Three or four times today different nurses pulled me aside to make sure I was ok if I looked woozy. They also made fun of me when I explained that I couldn’t watch them take blood or change the IV. But I guess I would make fun of them if they cringed at the thought of dealing with high schoolers! To each his own.

Most importantly, I am so proud of Chris, who has dealt with this for the last few months, dealt with my over-the-top weepiness at the drop of a hat, and came out of surgery smiling and joking. He has a fabulous attitude and I am ridiculously proud to call him my husband. One day down, only a few more days to go before he comes home.

We’ve reached the top of the mountain, and hopefully it is all downhill from here.

*PS- I am also grateful for awesome students, who took my absence in stride. Especially my seniors, who won’t see me all week but followed the instructions in my googledoc to a tee. They ran a backchat while analyzing a disaster movie and the conversation was fantastic. They even managed to clean up and send me a copy before the end of the period. As I skimmed the transcript earlier today, I breathed a sigh of relief. One less thing to stress about!